can someone clarify "mod deploy order" vs "plugin load order" in VORTEX

[muffinscubed]

apologies for my small brain -- i've tried looking it up and i've not really come across an answer that i understand. i'm using Vortex 1.4.11 for Skyrim LE and i have 23 mods loaded.

i think i understand the difference between mods and plugins -- i.e. that plugins are just one potential component of mods, but mods can involve many different components other than plugins, such as textures or whatever. but i don't understand why mod deploy order and plugin load order differ.

for example, why does Vortex auto-sort Unofficial Skyrim LE Patch.esp to load FIRST (after official DLC) in the plugins list... but deploys it LAST (i.e. after every other mod i have) in the mods list?

hope this questions makes sense. any help appreciated.

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vortex vers 1.4.11

game - skyrim legendary edition

number of mods - 23

system - windows, x64

[HadToRegister]

This question was just answered a couple of weeks ago

Deploy order on the mod tab is just showing in what order the mods were deployed.
I generally sort the Mods tab by Mod Name.

The MOD tab shows the content of the Mod archive, such as BSA, Texture Folders, Mesh Folders etc...

The Plugin tab shows the order of ESL, ESPfe, ESM and ESPs

Vortex sorts Ultimate Skyrim LE Patch.esp after the DLC because built in LOOT has a rule to sort it that way.

The Mod Page deals with Textures, Meshes, BSA etc, and determines which Mod's Textures/Meshes overwrite another Mod

Deploy Order is really nebulous IMO, as the only time it matters is when Vortex tells you about a Texture or Mesh conflict, where you make a rule to load one mod after another.

Nexus Mod Manager (NMM), never allowed you to sort the Mod order, like you can do with Vortex, it only told you which textures/meshes it was physically overwriting, and if you chose incorrectly, you had to uninstall BOTH mods, and reinstall them in the correct order.
Fortunately in Vortex, that doesn't matter anymore, all you have to do now, instead of uninstalling the conflicting mods then installing them in the correct order, all you have to change your Sorting rule for LOAD AFTER to LOAD BEFORE, and Vortex correctly restores the overwritten files, and overwrites the files that should've been overwritten.

[muffinscubed]

thanks for your response!

so essentially what i gather from what you said is: "mod deploy order" is irrelevant to me unless vortex tells me there is a conflict, and then "plugin load order" is something that LOOT auto-sorts and generally i should follow what it advises me?

[HadToRegister]

thanks for your response!

 

so essentially what i gather from what you said is: "mod deploy order" is irrelevant to me unless vortex tells me there is a conflict, and then "plugin load order" is something that LOOT auto-sorts and generally i should follow what it advises me?

 

 

 

 

Exactly.

[Tannin42]

Both orders are very similar in concept but they control things on different levels.

The mod deploy order decides which files get put into the game directory if two mods contain the same file ("the same" meaning: "a file with the same name in the same directory but potentially with different content").

The plugin load order decides which change records get put into the game world if two plugins contain the same record.

 

So the plugin order also doesn't matter unless two plugins have a conflict, it's just that Vortex can't see or show those conflicts, we delegate to LOOT to make that decision.

 

The other difference is that with mod conflicts Vortex has full control over which files it puts where. With plugins we can control the load order only indirectly, both LOOT and the game itself have constraints what order they will accept (e.g. we can't make it load regular plugins before masters, no matter how hard we try) but those constraints always have a reason, even if t's not immediately obvious.

[muffinscubed]

thanks!! makes sense now